MoDOT preps for rare May snow

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s not often you come across a snow play in May — not in the Kansas City metro at least.

“I’ve been here a lot of years and I don’t remember ever having to staff for a winter storm in May in all my years,” Wess Murray said, a supervisor for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

While it might be baffling to think about, MoDOT is still running and gunning.

“We are having staff some in. We’re actually bringing staff in tonight. We’ll be in overnight and more or less starting a 24 hour response starting this evening.”

MoDOT has put plows back on the trucks and opened up the salt domes.

“It’s tough. I mean, we’d already put a lot of that equipment away and were ready to start our spring and summer operations, so it’s a little bit tough to try and bounce back and forth.”

Also making things tough — construction season is already underway. MoDOT says road projects could slow down plows and limit where they can go.

“Our forecast that we contract with that contract actually ends April 30, so we haven’t got that. So we are also relying on our local stations and everyone to help us with this one because it’s that far out of the norm.”

At this point, MoDOT said they are counting on the plows to push out the snow in hopes spring can finally come for good.